Sunday began in much the same fashion as Saturday, without the hangovers. Bruce served breakfast in bed, pancakes and sausage, and they spent two hours scanning the New York Times. As noon approached, Mercer needed a break. She was about to begin her farewell when Bruce said, “Look, I’m shorthanded at the store this afternoon and the place will be crawling. I need to go to work.”
“Good idea. Now that I know the rules for writing fiction, I need to jot down a few things.”
“Always happy to be of service,” he said with a smile and pecked her on the cheek. They carried the trays to the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher. Bruce disappeared into the master suite on the second floor, and Mercer returned to the tower, where she dressed quickly and left without another good-bye.
If she had accomplished anything over the weekend, it wasn’t obvious. The bedroom antics were certainly enjoyable, and she knew him much better than before, but she wasn’t there for sex and she wasn’t there to write his novel. She was being paid a lot of money to gather clues and perhaps solve a crime. In that regard, she felt as though she had indeed accomplished little.
In her suite, she changed into a bikini, admired herself in the mirror, and tried to remember all the marvelous things he’d said about her body. It was lean and tanned and she was rather proud she had finally used it. She put on a white cotton shirt, grabbed her sandals, and went for a long walk on the beach.
13.
Bruce called at seven Sunday evening, said he missed her terribly, couldn’t imagine getting through the night without her, and could she stop by the store for a drink when he closed?
Sure. What else did she have to do? The walls of her awful little suite were closing in and she had written fewer than a hundred words.
She entered the store a few minutes before nine. Bruce was checking out the last customer and appeared to be working alone. As the customer left, he quickly locked the door and turned off the lights. “Follow me,” he said, and he led her up the stairs and through the café, turning off lights as he went. He unlocked a door she had never noticed and they entered his apartment.
“My man cave,” he said as he turned on the lights. “I lived here for the first ten years I owned the store. Back then it covered the entire second floor, but then the café came along. Have a seat.” He waved at a bulky leather sofa that ran along an entire wall and was covered with pillows and quilts. Opposite the sofa, a large flat-screen TV was mounted on a squat table, and around it were, of course, shelves lined with books.
“Champagne?” he asked as he stepped behind a snack bar and opened the refrigerator.
“Of course.”
He removed a bottle, quickly popped the cork, filled two flutes, and said, “Cheers.”
They clinked glasses and he gulped most of his. “I really needed a drink,” he said as he wiped his mouth with the back of a hand.
“Evidently. You okay?”
“Rough day. One of my clerks called in sick so I worked the floor. It’s hard to find good help.” He drained his flute and refilled it. He removed his jacket, untied his bow tie, yanked out his shirttail, kicked off his dirty buckskins. They moved to the sofa and fell into it.
“How was your day?” he asked, gulping again.
“The usual. I walked on the beach, got some sun, tried to write, went back to the beach, tried to write some more, took a nap.”
“Ah, the writing life. I’m envious.”
“I did manage to ditch my prologue, add quotation marks to my dialogue, take out the big words, and I would have cut some more but there’s not enough to cut.”
Bruce laughed and took another drink. “You’re adorable, you know that?”
“And you’re such a con man, Bruce. You seduced me yesterday morning and . . .”
“Actually it was morning, noon, and night.”
“And here we go again. Have you always been such a ladies’ man?”
“Oh yes. Always. I told you, Mercer, I have a fatal weakness for women. When I see a pretty one, I have one thought. It’s been that way since college. When I got to Auburn and was suddenly surrounded by thousands of cute girls, I went wild.”
“That’s not healthy. Have you thought about therapy?”
“What? Who needs it? This is a game for me, and you have to admit I play it rather well.”
She nodded and took a sip, her third. His glass was empty so he refilled it again. “Easy, boy,” she said but he ignored her. When he was back on the sofa she asked, “Have you ever been in love?”
“I love Noelle. She loves me. We’re both very happy.”
“But love is about trust and commitment and sharing every aspect of your lives.”
“Oh, we’re into sharing big-time, believe me.”
“You’re hopeless.”
“Don’t be such a sap, Mercer. We’re not talking about love; we’re talking about sex. Pure physical pleasure. You’re not about to get involved with a married man and I don’t do relationships. We’ll get it on whenever you want or we can stop right now. We’ll be friends with no strings attached.”
“Friends? How many female friends do you have?”
“None really. A few nice acquaintances, maybe. Look, if I had known you planned to analyze me I wouldn’t have called.”
“Why did you call?”
“I figured you were missing me.”
They managed to laugh. Suddenly Bruce set down his flute, took hers and placed it next to his, grabbed her hand, and said, “Come with me. I have something to show you.”
“What is it?”
“A surprise. Come on. It’s downstairs.”
Still barefoot, he led her out of the apartment, through the café, down to the first floor, and to the door to the basement. He unlocked it, flipped a light switch, and they eased down the wooden steps to the basement. He turned on another light and punched the code that unlocked the vault.
“This better be good,” she said, almost under her breath.
“You will not believe it.” He pulled open the thick metal door to the vault, stepped inside, and turned on another light. He walked to the safe, entered another pass code, and waited a second for the five hydraulic bolts to release. With a loud clicking sound, the door was free and he gently pulled it open. Mercer watched everything as closely as possible, knowing she would be expected to write down every detail for Elaine and the team. The inside of the vault and the interior of the safe appeared the same as the last time she saw them. Bruce tugged on one of the four lower drawers and slid it open. There were two identical wooden boxes; she would later estimate them to be fourteen inches square and made of what she guessed to be cedar. He removed one and stepped to the small table in the center of the vault. He gave her a smile, as if revealing a rare treasure.
The top of the box was attached by three small hinges, and he gently raised it. Inside was what appeared to be a cardboard box, gray in color. Carefully, he lifted it out and placed it on the table. “This is called an archival storage box, made of acid-and lignin-free board and used by most libraries and serious collectors. This came from Princeton.” He opened the box, and announced proudly, “The original manuscript of The Last Tycoon.”